Sima de los Huesos: the earliest Neanderthal-lineage population (Atapuerca)
- Date
- c. 430,000 years ago
- Category
- Science, technology & invention
- Region
- Europe (Spain)
- Era
- Prehistory
- Significance
In a 13-metre vertical shaft called the Sima de los Huesos ('Pit of Bones') in the Atapuerca mountains of northern Spain, excavators have recovered nearly 7,000 fossils representing at least 28 individuals, dated to around 430,000 years ago.
The skulls and post-cranial bones display incipient Neanderthal features, especially in the face and teeth, while retaining more primitive traits in the braincase. Analysis of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA extracted from the bones in 2013-2016 confirmed that these hominins lie firmly within the Neanderthal evolutionary line and are distinct from Denisovans, implying that the Neanderthal-Denisovan split predates this date. The site provides the oldest hominin nuclear DNA recovered to that point and the largest single accumulation of Middle Pleistocene human fossils known. The unusual concentration of bodies deep underground, lacking other animal remains and accompanied by a single deliberately deposited stone biface ('Excalibur'), has been argued by some researchers to represent intentional disposal of the dead, though this interpretation is debated. Sima de los Huesos anchors our understanding of how the Neanderthal body plan assembled gradually over hundreds of thousands of years.
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